Tragic, sublime beauty confronts you in Kirsten Macy's new work at Barry WhistlerGallery. In stark contrast to the festive, yet muted collaboration of Sunny Sligerand Marianne Newson. Typically, the colors from all these artists are glaringlybright, but a kind of monumental shift has occurred in Macy's work thathas clearly influenced everyone involved in this exhibition.

I say shift, but this is only in the bright cheerful nature she once pursued, because these

Because of the toned down pigments, I can’t help but think of Robert Ryman and his whitepaintings on brown canvas. However, Macy commands a great deal of control which seemsto insist each mark must have absolute planning to be executed. Happy accidents mighthave occurred in the planning stages, but by the time these paintings were produced thosemoments have past. You must admire that level of craftsmanship in a piece that uses bothorganic and geometric elements.

Two groupings of small paintings had no eye popping explosions. Yet, these works also seemedto fit as moments before or after these event paintings. Like Proust eating a cookie, you getsome 3000 pages of memories that happen in a moment; this exhibition shows Macy reliving, imagining, and remembering an event that occurred in a second, but carries on and onin the mind.